Browse Items (53 total)

Tamara Schlez discusses what drew her from Buenos Aires, Argentina to North Carolina, what initially intrigued her about psychology, and how she obtained her current position as an ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) Coach and Outreach Specialist for El Futuro. Initially joining El Futuro to help launch the ADHD program, Schlez now…

Pilar Rocha-Goldberg is the President & CEO of El Centro Hispano. She begins by recounting her early life in Bogotá, Colombia, where she attended university and became a nutritionist-dietitian in 1988, later working for Nestlé. During a neonatologist conference hosted by Nestlé in 2002 in Cartagena, she met Ron Goldberg, a neonatologist at Duke…

Paola Saldivias Méndez was born in Quito, Ecuador, before moving to Bolivia with her family as a baby and begins by detailing her family’s story. Her educational experiences included her “American” bilingual school, where teachers fostered her love for education, and her degree in Science and Social Communication from Universidad Católica…

Lilibeth Andrés is the Engagement Coordinator for the Digital Equity Initiative in the NC Farmworker Health Program. Andrés was born in Chapel Hill and raised in Sanford, North Carolina, and remains committed to serving her community by working to increase access to healthcare. In this interview, Andrés reflects on her parents’ and grandparents’…

Niccolo Roditti, who was born in 1996 in Guayaquil, Ecuador and moved to the U.S. at age three, is the Assistant Director of the LGBTQ Youth Center of Durham, part of the LGBTQ Center of Durham. Niccolo discusses conflicts and other intersections of queerness and traditional Ecuadorian culture. In addition to describing the experiences of queer…

Cindy Bredenberg discusses her experiences and observations as a Spanish teacher at Jordan-Matthews High School in Siler City, North Carolina. She shares about her school’s demographics and the school culture and reflects on her experiences working with students throughout her fifteen years working at Jordan-Matthews, many of whom Latinx. Cindy…

At a young age, Norma Martí migrated with her family from Puerto Rico to a diverse, working-class neighborhood in northwestern Indiana, part of metropolitan Chicago. She shares her formative experiences there, what enabled her to attain a college education, and her encounters with discrimination in her first role as an educator. She subsequently…

Luis Olivieri-Robert is Community Relations Analyst for the City of Raleigh, a role through which he has served Latine and migrant communities since moving to North Carolina from his native Puerto Rico in 2002. He recounts his early life, educational experiences, and professional development in Puerto Rico and the continental U.S., having taught at…

Born in Guatemala but raised in Siler City, North Carolina, Hannia Benítez currently serves her local communities as Deputy Director at El Vínculo Hispano/The Hispanic Liaison’s office in Lee County and as Chair of Siler City’s Immigrant Community Advisory Committee (ICAC). Hannia shares her foundational experiences, including the need to be her…

Adolfo Briceño is Program Manager of Human Relations and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at the City of Winston-Salem. He shares his early life experience in Mérida, Mexico, where he was born and educated. Having studied economics, he grew disillusioned with the field while working as a mortgage analyst at a Cancún bank and switched careers to…